fantomNews™ — the ultimate know

The Search Engine Wars have flared up full scale again: the contenders vying for the attention of shareholders, investment consultants and search marketers alike, it is not surprising to see them flaunt their index size figures all over the place - and once more truth constitutes the first victim. What’s more, these shamelessly skewed statistics are bound to dramatically impact all search and web analytics including those conducted for search engine optimization purposes.

Investors beware: if this should turn into a massive trend, it could seriously impact Google’s business – here’s one PR 7 blogger who is not prepared to take any more crap from them.

One would have thought that a company of Google’s resources and technical savvy would be able to prevent further downloads of their established spy- and malware. The more so as this specific download link is still being propagated across a multitude of blogs and fora. After all, they’ve had three full days to do it. But that’s precisely what’s not happening.

Hardly four days to oblivion – the deluge of PR-hurting reports has finally found its first deserving casualty: GWA is no more, at least for the time being. Still, it’s definitely a first victory and hopefully not the last one.

Only three days after its beta launch, GWA has arguably broken a dubious record: that of being one of the buggiest pieces of software ever unlashed upon the unsuspecting general public. Let the downloader beware!

We’ve detected another Google Web Accelerator IP range. Make sure you adjust your existing .htaccess code to cover it!

Here’s a page you can display to people who you are restricting from accessing your site because they’re using Google’s nefarious spyware. Plus some graphics we’re donating to the public domain: spread the message!

And on and on it goes with even the most acquiescent, docile and “we’re so excited to be a part of Google’s dream yadda yadda” industry pimping sites voicing at least some mild concerns about where Google’s latest gizmo may be heading.

In what may arguably be their greatest PR debacle ever, Google’s new Web Accelerator is encountering heavy duty flak by tech savvy webmaster, marketers and privacy buffs across the board. Here’s a first selection of gripes.

Here are the first verified Google proxy IPs as employed by their new Web Accelerator service. You’ll probably hear a lot more of this in future.

New web analytics and click fraud tracking tool (beta) launched by WebSourced.

ClickTracks is a web analytics program that literally shows marketers why visitors do what they do.
Visual interface, insightful reports, affordable price point.

A true trick of the trade - target four term search phrases for optimal sales conversion! This report gives you the details and outlines typical searcher behavior in all detail.

How reliable are search engines’ and third parties’ Keyword Traffic tools? Not very much, it seems: at the very best, the results seem to be being skewed inordinately by the very people who have to rely on them for their bread and butter - a highly paradox and potentially costly situation with no easy solution in sight.